Air guns - Pyramyd Air Report

Evanix Renegade double-action pistol Part 3

noreply@blogger.com (B.B. Pelletier) — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 10:30:00 +0000

by B.B. Pelletier

Part 1
Part 2

Today, we'll finish the report of the Evanix Renegade pistol with the accuracy test. Thanks for being so patient. The weather and some other duties made me postpone the test until yesterday. The day was near-perfect, with only a slight breeze that didn't get above 5 m.p.h.

While the day was perfect, I wasn't! I left my shooting table at home, so I had to improvise a rest. I put the sandbag over the back of a chair and rested the gun on that. It worked fine and was as steady as it gets, but it sure looks odd!

This may not look comfy, but it was actually a very solid rest. Note how far back my sighting eye is from the eyepiece. That's the long eye relief scope at work.

The scope I mounted is a Leapers UTG 4x40 Tactedge with long eye relief. That allows me to hold the pistol somewhat forward instead of putting my eye up to the screen. Of course, I had to get used to only 4x magnification; once I did, it seemed to do the job. Remember, deer hunters shot at 100 yards with nothing more than 4x for decades! And, this scope is one of the clearest, most parallax-free you can find. While I would be happier with double the power, this is a fairly good match for the pistol.

Leapers Tactedge 4x40 scope fits the pistol well and provides some eye relief.

Eun Jins were first
The first pellets I tried were Eun Jins, based on their performance in the velocity test (part 2). I would have thought they would have been okay, because they gave an average of 610 f.p.s.--but they weren't.

Not only is this a large group for only 25 yards, several of the pellets appear to be tipping as they pass through the paper. The pellet on top is the most evident. That's an oval hole if ever there was one.

The Eun Jins were not fully stabilized, as evidenced by the oval holes they cut in the target. They also grouped around 2" at 25 yards! Time to look elsewhere.

Next came Kodiaks
Beeman Kodiaks were next. They developed an average 692 f.p.s. for an average muzzle energy of 22.34 foot-pounds--about what we expect from a really great-shooting RWS Diana 48 in .22 caliber. I knew from the first group that this is the pellet for the Renegade pistol.

Beeman Kodiaks grouped very well at 25 yards. This group of 4 is about a half-inch. That's with an air PISTOL, folks!

Naturally, the lighter Kodiaks didn't shoot to the same point of aim as the Eun Jins. They had to be adjusted up just a bit to get on target. Once there, they did the job in a workmanlike manner.

This group of 5 Kodiaks represents an average group at 25 yards. It's 0.925" between centers of the two widest shots.

One thing I noticed with both Eun Jins and Kodiaks was that there are only 6 usable shots in the single-action mode. After that, the pellets start falling lower...even at 25 yards. Since double-action is reserved for followup shots only, plan on filling the gun after every cylinder.

Overall observations
The Renegade pistol is very powerful and quite accurate for a pistol. It can definitely be used for hunting game up to the size of a raccoon. While it's not a small handgun, it's much more compact than even a short carbine. If you're looking for something small to carry into the woods, this could be it. Personally, I'd shoot single-action most of the time and use double-action when I needed a quick follow-up shot.

HW 55 Tyrolean - Part 4

noreply@blogger.com (B.B. Pelletier) — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 10:30:00 +0000

by B.B. Pelletier

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Today, I'll finish the disassembly we started in the last report. I stopped at the point where all the parts were free to come out. Now, we'll remove the barrel to get the piston out because the two are connected by the cocking link. The link cannot be removed from the baseblock easily, so the barrel has to come out to allow the other end to be disconnected at the piston.

Remove the pivot bolt
To take the barrel off, first remove the pivot bolt. Remove the locknut on the right side of the gun, then the bolt can be removed. I found a lot of tension on the bolt from the locking latch, so I'm looking into whether that is normal or not. In my experience, the latches have worked a little easier on other guns, but those were all older models that were well broken-in.

The pivot nut and lockwasher are removed from the right side of the gun.

Next, the pivot bolt is removed. In this case, I unlocked the barrel latch to ease the tension on the pivot bolt. There's telltale moly visible from a tuneup.

Once the pivot bolt was out, there was no longer any doubt that this rifle has been tuned after it left the factory. The baseblock and pivot bolt are covered with what looks like Beeman M-2-M moly grease.

The barrel comes off
The baseblock now easily slides out of the spring tube forks, which releases tension on the articulated cocking link. You can now slide the link, with its integral cocking shoe, up to a widening on the cocking slot, where the shoe can be removed from the mainspring tube. The barrel and spring tube are now separated.

See the thin thrust washer that fits between the baseblock and the mainspring forks on both side of the gun? It's been greased with moly which is proper for a tuneup.

The cocking link is removed from the mainspring tube at the opening at the end of the cocking slot. The 55 does not have a separate sliding shoe to fit to the piston. It uses a widened end of the cocking link, which is seen in the lower right corner of this picture.

Observations
The piston has a new type parachute seal. That I expected. The mainspring has what looks like a Delrin rear guide--also expected, as well as a short "top-hat" front guide made of Delrin. That was unexpected and a new one for me. It looks like a factory part, but I've not seen another like it. Now that I see the inside of the gun, I can say that whoever did the tuning knew his stuff. Maybe the mainspring kinked after he closed her up. However, the failure to adjust the trigger to even standard Rekord performance, to say nothing of what it is capable of, still seems strange for someone who knows what he's doing.

The piston has a new parachute seal as expected and a Delrin front spring guide that wasn't expected.

The gun is now fully disassembled. The job took about 10 minutes, start to finish, though I spread it over two reports to show the details. I'll now do the following:

1. Clean and adjust the trigger.
2. Select a new mainspring and fit it to the gun.
3. Adjust the locking lever for less tension.
4. Lubricate all parts and assemble the rifle.

When the job is done, the shooting behavior should feel very different.

B.B. works it out - Part 5 The Taurus PT 1911

noreply@blogger.com (B.B. Pelletier) — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 10:30:00 +0000

by B.B. Pelletier

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

B.B. is testing a firearm?
I bet many of you had forgotten this report existed. I changed the title from B.B. gets disappointed to B.B. works it out, because I'm now on the upswing with this gun. This is a report on a firearm: a Taurus PT 1911. I'm doing this as an analog of a new airgunner encountering a gun that fails to live up to its advertising. The .45 ACP Taurus PT 1911 sells for under $700 and is supposed to have the same features as a $2,100 1911 pistol. Well, the one I bought had a lot of feeding problems from the start, so I've reported how I dealt with them to show new airgunners how to deal with their problems.

Ammo is important
Many things have happened since my last report back in January. I discovered, for example, that some of my reloads do not work reliably even in a Wilson CQB pistol, a .45 automatic that really does cost $2,300 and is considered the gold standard for pistol reliability. So, if they don't work in that gun - which is the TX200 of sidearms - they're hardly going to work in a cheaper pistol with known faults. The analogy here is that pellets are very important to the operation of your gun. Never overlook that! Don't limit what you shoot to whatever is available at the discount store or sporting goods dealer. Buy the best pellets, which are generally available only from online sources.

The principal fault of the Taurus has been feeding the ammunition. It has a failure to feed that is symptomatic of a faulty extractor. A qualified 1911 gunsmith would have known this pretty quick, but it took me about 400 rounds to narrow it down. That's my analogy to a new airgunner who would encounter the same difficulty finding out what is wrong with his airgun.

This jam is indicative of a faulty extractor. This is an old picture. The slide now closes to within a quarter-inch.

After pinning the fault on the extractor, I went to work on it. I got the reliability up from 8 failures to feed in 84 rounds to less than one failure per 100 rounds. That's certainly moving in the right direction, but for a defensive pistol, it's still unacceptable. I want less than one failure per 1,000 rounds, a level that can easily be reached with top custom guns like the Wilson CQB.

Another problem I thought I had was with the two Taurus magazines that came with the gun. They continued to cause failures to feed, while the Wilson Combat magazines seemed to work perfectly after the extractor had been reworked. I was ready to toss the Taurus mags, but then I read several reports that said they work just fine in other PT 1911s. Apparently, the corrections I'd made to my pistol were good, but not good enough. If I use just the Wilson Combat mags in it, the feeding problem seems to be fixed, but I think the Taurus mags reveal a latent tendency for feeding problems. I'll feel more comfortable fixing those problems, because this gun is meant for self defense.

I cooked up another handload with a bullet that has a great reputation for feeding well in a 1911, and I switched gunpowder to a type that has a splendid reputation for accuracy. I went back to the range several more times. I've now run about 1,200 rounds through the Taurus. That counts the 100 rounds I shot this past weekend. There were only two failures to feed in those 100, and I was using only the Taurus magazines. I think I've narrowed the problem to just one faulty part - the extractor. The failure is even less than ever before, with just a quarter-inch of the slide out of battery instead of the three-quarters of an inch I had before I adjusted the extractor.

That brings me to a decision point. I can continue to work on the Taurus extractor or I can buy a new one from a reputable third party vendor. Wilson Combat sells one that is a drop-in, and up to this point everything I've tried from them works as advertised. That's the way I've decided to go.

The pistol is now completely reliable with Wilson magazines and somewhat reliable with Taurus magazines. My goal is to make it completely reliable with the Taurus mags, as well.

Don't forget accuracy
Reliability is just one component of a defense pistol. Accuracy is another. The Wilson CQB can shoot tighter groups than the Taurus, but the Taurus has sights that are quicker and easier to align. At 25 yards, I am shooting an 8" group at the aimpoint for 35 shots, shooting one-handed timed fire. Timed fire means about three shots every ten seconds. That is center-of-bad-guy accuracy, so I've decided to keep the Taurus and continue to work on it.

This is my qualifying target from a concealed carry course I took last month. I shot the Wilson CQB. There are 50 timed-fire rounds in the target from 3, 7 and 15 yards. My wife calls this the Blue Man group. She also qualified...with the same gun.

What lessons have been learned?
When I started this report with a brand-new gun, I faced a decision to either send it back to Taurus for warranty repairs or to fix it myself. I decided to do the latter, and I got a 1911 gunsmithing course on DVD. From that course, I was able to narrow the fault down to the extractor, which I then adjusted to near-perfect operation. However, I feel I've taken the factory extractor about as far as it can go reliably. It is made from a metal injection molding (MIM) process, and gunsmiths everywhere, including the one in the video course, warn that certain parts made by MIM - like extractors - cannot ever be considered 100 percent reliable because they lack the ability to hold the correct spring tension.

The replacement extractor I'm buying is machined from bar stock steel, because Wilson Combat believes that is the only way to make a reliable extractor. Wilson Combat makes the gold standard of reliable 1911s like my CQB, so I think I'll trust them on this point.

Like any new airgunner having a gun with which they are not familiar, I don't know if my decision is right or not, but my research shows that Wilson Combat parts have been reliable up to this point. I'll take the risk. This report is not over.

The air transfer port Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (B.B. Pelletier) — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 10:30:00 +0000

by B.B. Pelletier

First, an announcement. The 2008 International Airgun Expo is coming up in just a few weeks (Oct. 24 & 25). I make it a point to drive out from Texas every year to attend the show. It's THAT good! Pyramyd Air will be there again this year. Like last year, they'll have loads of new and used guns, scopes, accessories, a boatload of pellets and just about anything else an airgunner would want. If you didn't go to the Pyramyd Air garage sale last month, then here's another chance to get in on some good deals. Go to the show's web page for time, location, a map and a list of hotels.

Now, on to today's blog.

Part 1

There's a lot of interest in this subject. More than I would have guessed. So I'm running this second part today to give you something to talk about this weekend. Let's look at the shape of the transfer port as it relates to efficiency.

Many air transfer ports are simply straight holes bored through the end of the compression chamber. I'll discuss the size of those holes in the next and final report, but it's surprisingly similar across a wide variety of air rifles. Today, we'll look at transfer port holes that are not just straight tunnels.

Stay away from mirror-smooth
In a discussion I had with Jim Maccari, I was cautioned to not polish a transfer port to a mirror finish (assuming I could have done so). Jim told me his experience was that super-smooth transfer ports are not as effective as those that break up the airflow to some degree. In fact, he shared one of his tuning secrets - a transfer port shape he likes to use on lower-powered air rifles like the FWB 150 and 300, which are both target rifles. Both have a concentric transfer port, so this tip may work best for them and not as well for guns that have slanted transfer ports.

Jim's tip is to bore several graduated sizes of holes on the compression side of the transfer port - making a sort of bizzaro funnel, if you understand the Superman reference. A stepped funnel if you don't.

Seen in cross-section, a stepped port is cut from the compression side only.

According to Jim, this makes the rifle shoot smoother. I presume it's breaking up the airflow by creating eddies and swirls at each of the corners of the steps. I have no personal experience with guns using this kind of transfer port.

The changeable transfer port
I wanted to test several theories about transfer ports, and Dennis Quackenbush was kind enough to make up several ports that I could install in an R1 compression tube that Jim Maccari donated. Ironically, Jim donated this tube because it was ruined by an airgunner who drilled out his transfer port for more power. Of course, that didn't work and his rifle was ruined, so he went to Jim for repairs.

Dennis drilled out the port even larger and made up several transfer port inserts that could be installed from the outside of the gun in less than a minute. I had an excellent testbed for testing transfer port sizes and shapes.

Dennis Quackenbush made this set of removable air transfer ports so I could test various sizes and shapes for the R1 book. The port in the center actually has a Venturi shape.

Jim Maccari donated this compression/spring tube, and Dennis Quackenbush machined it to accept his quick-change transfer ports. When built into a rifle, it is a great testing tool!

What about a Venturi shape?
This question always comes up because we know the Venturi shape increases the speed of the air flowing through the port. When I did the transfer port test on the R1, I asked Quackenbush to make some ports that approximate a Venturi shape. The shape he made is shown below.

Seen in cross-section, this Venturi port has a bevel on both ends of the port.

I copied the shape after the port on a Webley Patriot, which is similarly beveled at both ends. I figured if it worked for the Patriot, it might also work for my R1. However, I saw no increase in speed with this shape. It may have been too large and may have reduced the compression by adding too much additional volume, like a slanted port. I don't know. I do know is that there was no increase when using the Venturi port when compared to a straight port of the same diameter.

Webley Patriot port is beveled like a Venturi, but the bevel is very shallow.

A shape that might be worth trying
Here's a shape I never tried, but one that I think might hold some promise for airspeed improvement. The trick will be to get the angle correct, so the total volume doesn't drop compression too low and offset any potential gain.

An interesting transfer port shape that I've never tried.

I bet you never thought there was so much to a simple thing like a transfer port, eh? It's not just where it's located, but also how it's shaped and even how much volume it contains. Next time, we'll look at the diameter of the port, which was the question that started this report in the first place.

Starting your own field target club Scoring

noreply@blogger.com (B.B. Pelletier) — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 10:30:00 +0000

by B.B. Pelletier

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

Scoring field target is really what the game is all about, because every shooter is in it for the score. And, all of you know by now that successfully knocking down a target gives the shooter a point, just as leaving it standing earns no point. What could be simpler than that?

What if the target falls halfway back, or not even halfway, but the paddle moves out of the kill zone? What if the paddle falls all the way back, but the target continues to stand? What if the paddle goes back as if to fall, then comes right back to where it started? I've seen all of these things in a match and had to make a decision or ruling about them so the match could continue.

The alibi
When a target doesn't behave as it's designed to, or whenever a shooter thinks it isn't behaving as it ought to, he can call the shot an alibi. He marks his scorecard with an alibi for that target and, if possible, tells the match director so he can get a ruling and possibly a fix. If he's shooting twice at every target, he can mark the number of times the target misbehaved. It may have been fine for one shot but an alibi for the other.

When there's an alibi, the match director must decide what to do about it. If the target seems to be malfunctioning and there's a replacement available, he can stop the match and swap targets; but that slows the match, and the people who shot before the swap will feel slighted if they didn't get a perfect score. Or, the match director can declare that target to be out of the match and nobody will get credit for shooting it. That's the best way to handle it in most cases. However, beware of "Alibi Ike."

Alibi Ike
Alibi Ike is an age-old shooting nickname for that shooter who seems to have more problems than anyone else. Run a few matches, and you'll meet him. He takes longer to shoot, has problems with just about everything and will always have the most alibis in a match. Once I figured this out, I learned to let other good shooters have a go at the "bad" target before knocking it out of the match. I was lucky in having a half-dozen nationally-ranked shooters at my club, any one of whom could prove or disprove the alibi with one shot.

Beware of the intermittent alibi
When a target is emplaced poorly, it may have marginal performance. This is especially true for targets that use gravity to operate. A 20 foot-pound gun may smack it down, while a 12 foot-pounder may not. I test every target with a 3 foot-pound air pistol after emplacement, but constant tugging on the reset string can move them around after awhile.

Scorecards
The scorecard has a place at the top to record the shooter's name, his rifle, scope and pellet (people always want to know this after the match) the date and the lane his squad starts on.

The scoring section has a place to register hits and misses for every target and lane, as well as the total hits for that lane. At the bottom of the card or sheet is a place for all the lane scores to be totaled. I had shooters mark their alibis with a note in the margin on the same line as the lane where it happened.

This is what my scorecard looked like. We had 12 lanes with three targets on most of them and two shots per target, so each had a row like this. This is lane 11, which is worth as much as 6 points. Near, middle and far refer to the targets on each lane. An X means a hit and an O means a miss.

Scoring
We put the three scorecards for each squad on a clipboard with a pencil for scoring. They received the clipboard at the match director's briefing. It was up to them to keep their own scores. At the end of the match, they turned in the clipboard and the scorecard was checked by the match scorer (usually my wife). She would count all the hits for each lane and found a surprising number of errors in every match. Once they were confirmed, the scores were entered on a tally sheet for the match and then prizes were awarded.

I found that shooters around the country were very interested in the results of our match, because they wanted to track certain shooters. Getting the scores up on our website was another important task. I tried to get them up within a few days of the match. If I didn't, the phone started ringing.

That's about it for running a club. There's a lot more, of course, but they're the kinds of things you learn by doing. Next, I'll discuss the use of scopes in field target and the pros and cons of adjusting the elevation for every shot versus holding over.

The air transfer port Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (B.B. Pelletier) — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 10:30:00 +0000

by B.B. Pelletier

When I was writing the R1 Homebrew series of articles for The Airgun Letter, I did lots of side experiments and research to discover what tuning tips did and didn't work. In the area of air transfer ports, I discovered a lot that wasn't documented at all, and more that was known to only a few people. Apparently, the air transfer port is one of the most modified areas of a spring gun, yet very few people are doing any research on the effects of modification.

What is an air transfer port?
At the end of the compression chamber, there's a small hole that the compressed air passes through after being compressed by the piston. That's the air transfer port. In a spring gun, the amount of compressed air is extremely small when compared to a pneumatic. As early as 1948, the gunsmith and pistol competitor Walther F. Roper surmised that it wasn't the volume of compressed air that makes a spring gun work but the speed at which the air is compressed and released. Three decades later, the Cardews of airgun experiment fame agreed with his observation.

When seen in cross-section, the air transfer port is actually a tunnel that runs from the compression chamber to a point immediately behind the breech, where the pellet sits. The compressed air rushes through this tunnel and blasts into the skirt of the pellet, sending it on its journey down the barrel. How this port or tunnel is made and where it's positioned play a large part in the efficiency of the air blast, which determines the rifle's efficiency.

Seen in cross-section, the pellet seals the front of the air space and the piston seals the rear (piston is to your right and not shown in this drawing). This is the air volume that gets compressed when a spring gun fires.

Don't think for one minute that this design is easily understood, despite being so dirt-simple. Jack Lewis, a famous gun writer and editor of the 1950s and '60s, saw a cutaway like this and thought the empty space he was looking at was a valve. He described that phantom valve in detail in a 1960s article about spring-piston rifles--not unlike the amateur astronomer Percival Lowell describing the canals on Mars. But now you know what it is--the space between the piston seal and the pellet. It's the part that's the air transfer port that interests us.

Air transfer ports are placed where they have to be because of the gun's design and also in order to do their job. Their job is simple--pass the compressed air from the piston to the pellet. Since they're open all the time (being nothing more than passageways), they form a part of the total volume of the compression chamber, even though they're not inside the chamber. Understanding that is important to understanding what comes next.

Concentric ports versus offset ports
The piston is a large hollow slug of metal that's pushed by either a coiled steel spring or by a charge of compressed gas in the case of a gas spring. In front of the piston is a seal that keeps the air from escaping. The compression chamber is in front of the piston, with the air transfer port forward of it. At the end of the air transfer port is the breech of the barrel, which is sealed by a lead pellet. The volume of air behind the pellet and in front of the piston gets compressed when the piston rushes forward.

Where the hole is located plays a large part in the efficiency of the transfer port. If the hole is in the center of the compression chamber, the air flows evenly from all around the chamber and into the port. If the hole is offset, some of the air has farther to go, resulting in a decrease in the intensity of the air blast behind the pellet. That's because some of the air is still flowing through the port after the initial shock wave has hit the pellet skirt and started the pellet on its way.

The central transfer port is more efficient than the offset port. Pardon the distortion in this image. It was scanned from the Beeman R1 book.

Some air transfer ports are offset rather than centered or concentric because the barrel is a smaller diameter tube than the compression tube. It sits atop the compression tube, making the transfer port offset. The Feinwerkbau 124 (and other spring guns) has a transfer port opening in the center of the compression chamber, but it also aligns with the center of the breech. To do that, the port is cut on an angle.

An angled transfer port centers the port in both the barrel and the compression chamber. To be angled, it must be longer and, therefore, loses efficiency.

Unfortunately, when the port is cut on an angle, it has to be longer, and the extra length adds volume to the compression chamber--remember that? Extra volume means the air cannot be compressed to the same degree, and, if we are correct about the intensity of the air blast being more important than the amount of air compressed, well, then it becomes a very big deal.

The TX200 has a curious humpbacked appearance, because the barrel is lowered to align with the center of the compression chamber. Hence, a light spring can produce great power with less effort. The RWS Diana 48/52/54 is designed the same way and produces similar results. The majority of airguns are not designed this way, so their transfer ports either have to be offset or longer to carry the air where it has to go.

This was just our first look at the subject. Before you can appreciate how the size of the transfer port affects things, you have to understand the design of the transfer port.

BAM B26-2 thumbhole Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (B.B. Pelletier) — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 10:30:00 +0000

by B.B. Pelletier

Part 1

We saw a lot of emotion over this gun in the remarks after the first report. Some of you seemed to be against it because of where it's made, and others had read criticism into my report that I didn't put there. I'm only here to report what I see and experience when I test these airguns, and the BAM B26-2 is a very nicely-made gun. If I gave any other impression, please forgive me. Yes, I did comment that the trigger is not a Rekord, but two readers advised me how they got a first stage from theirs, so there are definite possibilities.

Today, I'll look at velocity. You'll recall that I tested the cocking effort at just 24 lbs. If the rifle turns out to deliver 900 fps velocities, it will be very significant.

Clean the barrel
The first step is to clean the barrel with J-B Non-Embedding Bore-Cleaning Compound. By this time, you know the drill. I like to clean the barrel of all new air rifles if possible, to remove latent bluing salts, rust and factory dirt. However, I'll clean only those guns that lend themselves to it. I don't clean guns with sliding compression chambers and most PCPs, because I can't clean them with a solid rod from the breech. Those guns I just shoot until they're clean.

I removed the muzzlebrake before cleaning the barrel, simply because it's less of a hassle off the gun. JB paste can get stuck inside if you leave it on. The barrel proved to be very smooth and had no choke. There was some dirt inside the bore, but nothing nasty like rust. Once clean, the rifle was ready to be tested.

Velocity with Air Arms Diabolo Field domes
Air Arms Diabolo Field domes are made by JSB, so you know the quality is there. Once the rifle settled down, they averaged 709 f.p.s., with a spread from 694 f.p.s. to 723 f.p.s. That works out to an average muzzle energy of 9.42 foot-pounds for this 8.44-grain pellet.

Velocity with Crosman Premier lite pellets
Crosman Premier 7.9-grain pellets averaged 750 f.p.s. with a spread from 744 f.p.s. to 759 f.p.s. They seemed to fit the breech very well, which may be a hint of accuracy to come. The average energy was 9.87 foot-pounds.

Velocity with RWS Club 10 pellets
RWS Club 10 pellets are 7.0 grains, the same weight as RWS Hobbys, so I used them as my 1990s-era lightweight pellet. Once the rifle settled down, they averaged 854 f.p.s., with a spread from 839 f.p.s. to 869 f.p.s. That works out to an average energy of 11.34 foot-pounds.

Velocity with Crosman Silver Eagle hollowpoint pellets
Crosman Silver Eagle hollowpoint pellets weigh just 4.8 grains, and will usually give the highest velocity of any metal pellet. They averaged 1110 f.p.s., with a huge spread from 1009 f.p.s. to 1151 f.p.s. Only two shots out of 10 registered under 1100 f.p.s. The average energy was 13.14 foot-pounds, a number that is very interesting.

It straddles the fence!
By UK law, this pellet would make the B26-2 a firearm, since the energy is greater than 12 foot-pounds at the muzzle. And that should open your eyes to the precarious position airgun manufacturers find themselves in when trading in the UK market, since any new lightweight pellet has the potential to do this. Once a model tests above 12 foot-pounds, it's always and forever considered a firearm. Not just one specific gun, mind you--every gun made under that model number. If you bought it as an airgun and a new pellet pushes it over the limit, that's your bad luck! Spring guns are especially vulnerable to this because precharged guns don't normally vary quite as much.

What a spread of performance! From a low of just 9.42 foot-pounds to a high of over 13. That illustrates just how much it matters when choosing a pellet for an air rifle. U.S. shooters don't have to concern themselves with velocity or power, of course, so they can concentrate on accuracy and choose the best pellet they can. Next time, we'll find out what sort of capabilities this rifle can deliver. The .22 caliber B26 was pretty accurate, so I'm hoping this one will be, as well.

HW 55 Tyrolean - Part 3

noreply@blogger.com (B.B. Pelletier) — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 10:30:00 +0000

by B.B. Pelletier

Part 1
Part 2

Today, I'll start disassembling Wayne's HW 55 Tyrolean rifle to see what it looks like on the inside. Wayne bought this rifle on my recommendation and at a price that guaranteed a good investment from the start. From the firing behavior and other visual clues, the rifle seems to have been recently tuned. We will discover whether that assessment is true once we get inside. Also, there were a couple of concerns with the rifle. The Rekord trigger, which in the 55 is a special target version capable of extraordinary lightnesss with positive safety, has been adjusted rather heavy. It's not even as light as a sporting Rekord, which is nowhere near as fine as a target Rekord can be. So, I'll look into adjusting it and anything else it may need. Additionally, the cocking link drags over the mainspring when the barrel is closed after cocking. I've felt this before in other spring guns, but I'm going to have a close look to see if anything can be done.

A little R1
This rifle is constructed like many classic Weihrauchs, so there's a lot of similarity between it and the Beeman R1. Of course, the HW 55 is nearly three decades older than the R1, so perhaps it's more correct to say the reverse--that the R1 is a big HW 55. The point I'm making is that the 13-part blog I did on tuning a spring gun, which was based on an R1, holds true for this rifle, as well. There are some subtle differences besides the scale of the two rifles, and I'll cover those as we come to them. You might want to review that tuning report, as I may have touched on a few things that I'll not put into this report.

No safety
Step one is to remove the rifle's action from the stock. Before doing that, let's look at the first significant difference between an HW 55 and most other Weihrauch spring rifles. The 55 has no safety! The automatic safety was added to the line, model by model. At one time, none of them had it. I guess it seemed right for the sporting models, because that's where it ended up; but, since target guns seldom have safeties, it never made it to the 55 model, as far as I know. If anyone knows differently, I would be happy to be enlightened.

As far as I know, the HW 55 never had a safety.

This Beeman R1 has a safety button. Incidentally, this is the R1 that was the star of the book.

The Weihrauch safety is a spring-loaded pin that jumps into position when the rifle is cocked. If you want to reapply it after taking it off you have to break the barrel again--on the cocked rifle--so the piston rod can press the trigger parts out of the way, once more. Eliminating the safety does nothing to the function of the trigger, which remains a modular unit. But what it does do is remove one additional step a competitor has to remember while shooting a match. However, the 55 adds another step of its own, in the form of the breech lock lever, so it's really a wash. R1 owners get so used to releasing the safety that they never give it a second thought, anyhow.

Separate the action from the stock
The 55 has an articulated 2-piece cocking linkage, which means there is a steel bridge under the spring tube that the linkage passes through. That also means that instead of 2 forearm screws--one of either side of the gun--there's just a single screw in the bottom of the forearm that screws into a threaded bushing in the steel receiver bridge. HOWEVER--important tip--instead of just the front triggerguard screw holding the triggerguard and therefore the stock to the action - BOTH the front and rear screws hold the rifle together. The rear triggerguard screw actually threads into a nut held captive by the trigger housing. So, it still takes the removal of three screws to separate the stock and action.

Only a single forearm screw and a short cocking slot are features of an articulated cocking link.

On the 55, both triggerguard screws hold the rifle in the stock. The front screw fits into a boss on the spring tube. The rear screw fits into the rear of the trigger housing. That's the last hole on the right in this picture.

Remove the trigger
To remove the Rekord trigger, drift the two crosspins from left to right. Drift the front pin first and install it last during assembly. I will explain the special assembly procedure when we get to it. Once the trigger was out, I saw a strange and somewhat disturbing thing. It was still greased from the Weihrauch factory with what I call "tractor grease." Once you've seen this stuff, you'll never forget it. It's a clear sign the trigger has never been touched, but the mainspring that I can now see is coated with black tar. Who removes a mainspring and coats it with tar but fails to clean and adjust a Rekord trigger? There's an obvious answer to that, but I held my opinion until the mainspring was out.

Drift out the 2 crosspins that hold the trigger to the rifle.

The thick transparent brown grease that covers the trigger parts is a telltail factory sign. This trigger has never been cleaned or adjusted since new.

Remove the end cap
Once the trigger has been removed, there is a huge hole in the end cap. To get the threads started I insert the smooth end of a medium-sized crescent wrench into the hole and strike it on the the other end with a hammer to start the threads turning. It only takes two or three strikes on the wrench before the end cap can be unscrewed by hand. The smooth rounded end of the wrench ensures there will be no marks left on the sharp edges of the trigger slot.

Once the trigger is out, there is a deep slot where it was housed. The smooth rounded end of a 10-12-inch crescent wrench can be inserted in this slot and used as leverage to turn the end cap.

The end cap is threaded into the spring tube.

As you can see, the end cap simply unscrews from the spring tube. When the threads get near the end, I place the muzzle on a piece of wide leather (the inside of my sandal works for this) so the whole rifle can rotate while I hold the end cap still and exert downward pressure. When the threads end, the cap springs up with about one inch of spring tension, which is 30-40 lbs. of effort. I'm not using a mainspring compressor with this gun. I've always done it this way with the smaller Weihrauchs, and I know that other airgunsmiths do the same. If you don't know what you're doing, use a compressor.

The mainspring will now pull out. Once I have it in hand, my suspicions are confirmed. It's canted. That means this gun was not tuned by a professional. It has what is known as a redneck tune. Someone put black tar on the bent spring to calm the gun. It's like a politician paying hush money to cover his tracks instead of solving the problem. This spring will not be going back into this rifle.

This is the correct amount of black tar for a mainspring.

And there's a problem. A canted mainspring will make the gun buzz and produce less power. The last person inside the gun used black tar to quiet the buzz instead of replacing the spring with a good one. That may be where the dragging cocking link came from.

I'm going to stop here because this has become a lengthy process. Next time, I'll complete the teardown.

Steel Dreams - Part 2 Building a more powerful spring-piston gun

noreply@blogger.com (B.B. Pelletier) — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 10:30:00 +0000

by B.B. Pelletier

Part 1

Lots of interest in this story! I should have told it long ago. One of our readers may have actually seen the rifle at the recent airgun and firearm show in Frederick, Maryland.

With the last report, we left off with an external examination of the rifle. Naturally, as a red-blooded airgunner, I put it through the chronograph first thing. The cocking effort was 53 lbs., compared to a Beeman R1 that cocks with 36-41 lbs. of force. So, while the rifle isn't the heaviest-cocking springer I've ever tested (that distinction belongs to a Hatsan 135 that took 75 lbs. to cock), it certainly wasn't built for casual plinking.

The firing behavior was harsh. There was a huge lunge forward plus lots of vibration. The big lunge means a heavy piston, and the vibration usually means a canted mainspring. I said last time that the barrel was an Anschutz, but I found that Steve Vissage told me he thought he remembered putting a Webley Ospry barrel on the gun.That would have had the proper dimensions for a .22 caliber pellet.

The velocity I got with 14.5-grain Eley Wasp pellets was 755 f.p.s. I checked with the two .22 caliber R1 rifles I used in the R1 book, and they averaged 725 f.p.s. and 751 f.p.s. after 1,000-round break-ins. Steve Vissage remembered a velocity of around 800 f.p.s. with this gun, but that could have been with a different pellet.

Then, I disassembled the rifle. I was all set to use a mainspring compressor, but Steve told me the mainspring was under about a half-inch of preload. So, I removed those three machine screws and the one triggerguard screw, and the end cap popped up by less than a quarter-inch. I guess over time the spring had scragged (taken a set length from which it will never diminish until it wears out).

Not a lot of spring preload. Vissage saved some money by not threading the end cap like a Weihrauch.

With the end cap off, the mainspring came out, and it's a monster! Its 32.5 coils are made from 0.190" ASTMA 410 silicone chrome wire. The compressed length is 6.175", which must be a record for spring rifles. The mainspring weighs 12.2 oz.

An R1 mainspring weighs 6.3 ounces, in comparison, or just over half what this one weighs. Look at the photo for a comparison.

Guess which spring goes in the Vissage rifle? The R1 spring on the left is worn-out and canted. The Vissage spring is also canted, although this picture doesn't show it.

The piston came out next. It weighs 18.2 oz. and is 1.30" in diameter, while an R1 piston weighs 12.6 oz. and is 1.147" in diameter. Vissage had the piston tempered and shot-peened to relieve stress. The piston rod was hardened and drawn to a dark straw color. That should make it file-hard. The spring guide is also proportionately larger than the R1 guide.

Vissage's piston weighs over a pound and dwarfs the R1 piston beside it.

A close examination of the piston seal revealed several flat spots, which are burn marks from excessive friction. Vissage told me he put a lot of effort into the selection of material for the piston seal. He was looking for high-lubricity and tolerance for high-temperatures from the heat of compression. Those flat spots told me the seal was too dry and was wearing from the friction with the chamber.

See the flat spot that's facing you? That's a burn due to friction.

After seeing the massiveness of these parts, I felt that some velocity was lost by a slowdown in acceleration of the piston. The weight of the piston told me where the rifle's powerful forward lunge was coming from. However, before you start criticizing Vissage, let me tell you that Jim Maccari once made a plastic piston for a TX200 to accomplish just the opposite - faster acceleration from lighter weight. That gun vibrated like a jar full of mad hornets, so you can go too far either way.

The piston seal is not a parachute design. Perhaps there's some loss of pressure around the sides, where the high-pressure air has nothing to confine it. A parachute seal would inflate and push its sealing edges against the cylinder walls, but this seal can't do that.

I lubricated the piston seal with Beeman M-2-M moly grease before installing it again. The mainspring received a coat of Maccari's black tar to cut the vibration. All friction points received a coat of M-2-M grease. The thin washers at the pivot point had never been lubricated. Steve counted on the Armaloy plating to self-lubricate, but I found it mostly scraped away when I disassembled the rifle. So, I used moly paste on the washers, and the cocking got smoother.

When the gun was back together, it felt like the cocking effort had diminished, when in fact it had actually increased by 2 lbs.! It was smoother but also a little harder to cock. The velocity with Wasps averaged 776 f.p.s., but that dropped to 767 pretty fast. I imagine the rifle will sink back to 755 in time. It vibrated much less this time, though there was still some present.

Sorry to say that I never shot the Vissage rifle for accuracy. I was more interested in how the powerplant performed; and, as we saw, it was about like a factory R1.

When I tuned a standard Beeman R1 with a Venom Mag 80 Laza kit, the average velocity with Eley Wasps jumped to 840.8 f.p.s., and the firing behavior was as smooth as glass. The Venom kit was the first to offer Delrin button bearings to float the piston in the spring tube. It took 50 lbs. of effort to cock, but the return was a much more powerful air rifle.

That's the tale of a man and his quest for speed. The other two rifles he built were a .177 and a rifle with both .177 and .22 barrels, which he kept for himself. Vissage never went supersonic in .22 caliber, but I bet he knew a lot more about what goes into a powerful spring rifle after this project was over! And, now, we all know a little more.

BAM B26-2 thumbhole Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (B.B. Pelletier) — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 10:30:00 +0000

by B.B. Pelletier

BAM B26 is a well-done copy of the Beeman R9.
Before I begin, I received a packet of vintage Daisy BBs yesterday. I remember that one of you said he was sending them, but I don't remember who I am to thank. These will find their way into a vintage Daisy gun box somewhere.

This is actually my second look at BAM's B26-2. The first was back in 2006, when I tested a .22 caliber B26 with a standard stock. Today, I'll start looking at the same gun in .177, and this one sits in a thumbhole stock.

The B26 is BAM's second attempt at copying the Weihrauch HW95, which we all know as the Beeman R9. The B20 was their first try, and even that rifle was pretty impressive, but in the B26 has a copy of the Rekord trigger that was refined through more attention to finishing the parts.

For those who are not familiar with the R9, it's a classic breakbarrel spring-piston air rifle. It was developed from the BSF 55 action that Weihrauch acquired when they purchased the BSF company back at the end of the 1980s. The rifle went through several design iterations, first as the Marksman 55, then the Beeman R10 and finally becoming the R9. The R9 is a lightweight spring rifle with all the power of the Beeman R1 but at a lower weight and bulk. It has the famous Rekord trigger that gets airgunners so excited, so it was a natural to be copied.

I talked with the BAM representatives at the SHOT Show when the B26 first came out, which is how I know that the trigger was the major upgrade. They were really impressed with all the finishing Weihrauch put into the trigger, and they knew they would have to do more work if they really wanted to compete. That work was going to take their rifle from a retail price below $100 to significantly more, and in those days the Chinese competed on price, alone. So, BAM took a real leap of faith that the airgunning world was ready to pay more for a higher quality level. Of course, the fact that many were already buying the R9 helped them make the decision.

The rifle
The B26 thumbhole comes without sights, so plan on mounting a scope. The thumbhole stock is made from medium-brown wood that resembles beech. In typical Chinese fashion, the stock on my test rifle has several ares where wood putty was used to fill in gouges. There's no checkering, and the wood is finished very smooth. The raised cheekpiece is sharply defined around the border and looks very European. The butt drops very little, so medium or high mounts are what you want to use, because your cheek will already be quite high. Also, you might want to install an adjustable butt to lengthen the distance between your shoulder and cheek. Otherwise, the rifle will be difficult to fit to most people's hold.

Dark oval is wood putty. This rifle has three areas like this one. Most Chinese wood stocks will have this, though sometimes it isn't stained dark and can be harder to locate.

I have never been fond of thumbhole stocks because they don't fit my style of hold, but this one isn't that objectionable. It does make the rifle unfit for southpaws, however.

The metal is finished a little shinier than matte and is even all around. Markings are lasered on the metal, where they appear silver.

Rifle's nomenclature is lasered on the left side of the baseblock.

The trigger
BAM didn't copy the Rekord exactly and in so doing, they missed the boat. What you get is a delightful single-stage trigger with adjustable pull weight. If you can work with a single-stage trigger, this is a very good one. Light and relatively creep-free, but it isn't a Rekord.

A crisp single-stage trigger that's unlike a Rekord in operation. It still beats many popular sporting triggers found on air rifles today.

Dimensions
The rifle is 44.5" long and weighs a light 7.5 lbs. That's 1.5 lbs. less than an R1 of the equivalent power. The barrel is 16" long, but the muzzlebrake adds another 1.5" to that. The pull length is 14-1/8".

Cocking and trigger-pull
The rifle cocks at a surprisingly low 24 lbs. of force, which is amazing considering the advertised power. The piston seal is honking like a goose--a sure sign that things are too dry inside. That leads me to wonder if I shouldn't try to tune the rifle to see if I might knock off another pound of effort. The trigger lets go at 3 lbs., 2 oz. of pull. Because it's a single-stage, I don't want to adjust it too light or it could slip off by itself. The release is crisp and repeatable. And the safety, which is a weakness with Rekord triggers, is very crisp and positive. One negative observation is that the baseblock is under far too little tension. Once cocked, the barrel flops around freely instead of remaining in any position. A tune would fix that, as well.

A very nice air rifle
The B26 needs to make no apologies. It seems to hold its own with the R9. Apart from not having the Rekord trigger and the wood putty, the B26 is quite the air rifle--especially for less than $200. That's $300 less than the rifle it copies.

Jacob's conundrum The relationship of power to accuracy

noreply@blogger.com (B.B. Pelletier) — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 10:30:00 +0000

by B.B. Pelletier

I received this question from Jacob this past week.

I have a question about the relationship of power to accuracy. Consider the Daisy 953 with about 500 fps and the Gamo Nitro 17 with about 900 fps. The Daisy shoots much smaller groups at close ranges. Since the Gamo will shoot a much straighter trajectory, will there be a distance at which the accuracies of the two guns become equal and then from longer distances the Gamo will be more accurate? Or will the Daisy always be more accurate regardless of range? I used these two guns as examples, but would like to know if the answer would apply to other air rifles as well.

The ballistic cone
Ballistic projectiles travel in an arc; that, we all understand. The arc a projectile follows is actually a drop from the instant the projectile leaves the muzzle. At that point, all the "push" ends and gravity takes over. Where the projectile strikes the earth depends on its velocity, which starts diminishing at the muzzle, too. The angle of the bore to the plane of the earth is another factor that determines where the projectile lands. Also, bullets radiate from the straight-line trajectory in all directions, landing in a circular pattern--a so-called cone of fire.

Farther than you think!
Several years ago, the U.S. Army used millimeter-wave radar to track the flight of various black powder bullets to settle an age-old argument. Some said that if a bullet leaves the muzzle at 1,200 f.p.s., there is no way it could travel as far as a mile (1,760 yards) before striking the earth. In fact, those bullets were monitored by radar and traveled anywhere from 2,800 yards to 3,900 yards before striking the earth when their bores were inclined 30 degrees above the horizon upon firing. That test settled the argument of how far bullets can go, but it overlooked all the other things a bullet does while in flight.

Pellets don't travel as far because of their high aerodynamic drag. But they do travel 400-500 yards.

Instability
A bullet or pellet spirals around its own center of mass as it flies. The direction of spin determines the direction of the spiral. If the bullet or pellet is made very uniform, this spiral may be very small. So small that it isn't readily apparent for a long distance from the muzzle. However at some point in its flight, the bullet will begin to spiral as a result of destabilizing. Here's an interesting fact. If the range at which the bullet performs (such as the distance to the target) is shorter than the range at which it destabilizes, that bullet (or pellet) will be accurate! If, however, the range to the target is farther than where the bullet destabilizes, it'll be inaccurate.

More instability
An unstable bullet or pellet may also yaw in flight. I see this all the time in my testing. A yaw is when the axis of the pellet is not parallel to the line of flight. It is seen in targets as an oval hole. Like a spinning top, the yaw will sometimes correct itself and the bullet/pellet will become stable again. There is far more chance for a pellet to stabilize than a bullet, because a pellet has high drag that tends to stabilize it all the time.

Once off track, the problem always gets worse
However, if the bullet/pellet is spinning too slow to stabilize, it'll never recover from the yaw. A yawing bullet/pellet has even higher drag than a straight-flying bullet/pellet, and the high air pressure on the side of the yawing bullet/pellet will continue to push it off course over time (which means over distance).

Keyhole
The extreme yaw condition is called a keyhole, and represents the bullet passing through the target sideways. I have seen that with pellets a few times, but I can't lay my hands on any pictures right now. However, during some testing of a reduced power load in my trapdoor Springfield .45-70, I captured a perfect keyhole at 50 yards. The bullet is tumbling end over end in flight, and the farther it gets from the muzzle, the less likely it will land near any other bullets fired from the same rifle.

Four bullets from a .45-70 rifle landed in this pattern, several inches up and right from the aim point at 50 yards. Three of the bullets were yawing badly, but the fourth one was a perfect keyhole.

So your question boils down to two things. First, is the pellet accurate at any range? Because an inaccurate pellet is not going to suddenly reverse its tendency in flight and become accurate. That is what the term ballistic means: a projectile that is unguided during its flight.

The second part of the question is this: the farther you go from the muzzle, the more likely it becomes that the pellet will destabilize. So, your Daisy 953, which is such a tackdriver at 10 yards, may not be able to stay on paper at 100 yards. Your Gamo Nitro that can't keep up with the 953 at 10 yards may be able to shoot a 12" group at 100 yards. So, the answer is "yes," there is a point at which the Nitro becomes more accurate than the 953 simply because of its greater velocity.

The magic range may not be 100 yards. I just used that distance to make a point. What if the real distance at which the Nitro passes the 953 for accuracy is 157 yards? Then, it would make no practical difference to you, because you're never going to intentionally shoot either rifle that far.

Jacob, I saved the best for last. Is it your Nitro that is less accurate, or could it be a flaw in your hold that renders the rifle less accurate? Breakbarrel spring-piston airguns are the absolute most difficult shooting implements to master, while a single-stroke pneumatic like your 953 is one of the easiest. I haven't tested the Nitro, but I have tested the Gamo Whisper, whose barrel should be very similar to the Nitro. I got many groups well under a half-inch at 25 yards. Can your 953 do as well?

This 5-shot group from a .177 Gamo Whisper with H&N Match pellets went into a 0.325" group at 25 yards.

Steel Dreams - Part 1Building a more powerful spring-piston gun

noreply@blogger.com (B.B. Pelletier) — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 10:30:00 +0000

by B.B. Pelletier

More than a decade ago, I saw a curious rifle at the Little Rock Airgun Expo. It looked something like a Beeman R1 but was quite a bit larger. When the seller told me that it was a handmade, one-of-a-kind rifle that was designed to be a more powerful R1, I couldn't resist buying it. I had just published the R1 book, and here was a great follow-on story that needed to be told.

This curious springer is a monster.

Steel dreams
The inventor of this rifle, Steve Vissage, had seen the Beeman R1 and wanted a rifle that would put a .22 pellet into the supersonic realm. That was quite a goal for a spring-piston gun of the early 1980s, and it still hasn't been reached today by any except a few PCPs. Steve thought the best approach was to increase the diameter of the piston and to increase the length of the stroke - some of the same topics we frequently discuss on this blog.

Now I'll tell you why I am making this report. A number of our new readers are asking the same questions that Steve Vissage asked back in 1981. What does it take to get more power from a spring-piston air rifle? Back in 1982, the R1 was the most powerful spring-piston gun in the world. At 940 f.p.s. in .177, it offered velocity undreamed of 5 years earlier.

When the R1 came out, Robert Beeman wrote in his catalog that it took more than just a powerful mainspring to boost power in a springer. But, because those catalogs are now collector's items, a lot of newer airgunners haven't had the opportunity to read them. Many who might have read them don't believe what Beeman said. What Steve Vissage did is what many of you think should be possible today, and I want to share my observations on that topic.

Steel dreams become real things!
Vissage built three rifles, of which mine was the first. Let me explain what's so different about talking about airguns and actually building them. When guys start discussing airguns, anything seems possible; but, whenever Vissage made a decision, it got locked into steel...not easily changed. Even if he did make some changes, there was still a cost involved for the original decision that was not followed. Steel dreams cost more and take longer than daydreams. If you don't understand what I'm driving at, you will by the time this report is finished.

The date of manufacture and serial number are stamped on many exterior parts. SS stands for supersonic and V1 stands for Vissage model 1.

Both sides of the baseblock and spring tube are marked similarly.

Let's look at this rifle
A stock R1 weighs 8.9 lbs., give or take. Many new airgunners feel it's far too heavy, and they're also impressed by it's sheer size. The Vissage rifle weighs 11 lbs. It's also longer than the R1, but I don't seem to have recorded the length. The barrel came from an Anschutz target rifle; and, since Anschutz doesn't make target air rifles in .22 caliber, I think that means it's a .22 rimfire barrel. So, accuracy was out the window, because .22 rimfire bores are several thousandths larger than air rifle bores, and don't fit pellets very well.

The spring tube, end cap, baseblock and cocking link are all custom-made parts. Steve told me he reckoned he put $600-700 1980's dollars into making this one rifle. The wood stock came from an HW80. It was opened up to receive the 40-thousandths-larger spring tube. The forward stock screws are very close to the end of the forearm. Look closely at the first photo, and you'll see they had to be moved forward almost an inch.

Just so there is no doubt who made the gun, Steve put his address on the end cap. He later moved from that address. See that flathead screw ahead of the end cap? That's how the end cap is held to the spring tube.

The sights are stock Weihrauch items, the same as come on an R1. There is no provision for mounting a scope. The entire rifle is plated with Armaloy, a tough material used on tactical handguns. It is said to resist wear and to be self-lubricating.

The trigger is a Rekord, which was very popular back in the 1980s. Vissage would have been able to get one easily, since they had been on the HW35 for at least 20 years at that time. This is a good place to reflect that he used the factory trigger and sights instead of inventing his own. By this point in the project, he'd sunk a lot of money into this rifle, and inventing a whole new trigger would have cost him more than all he had spent to this point. Don't forget that all the internal parts - the piston and mainspring, for instance, have to be made from scratch, because the entire rifle has different dimensions than a standard R1.

Speaking of different dimensions, how does Vissage get a stock Rekord trigger to line up with the piston hook if all the internal dimensions are different? Details like that are always overlooked when guys talk about airguns; but, when you actually build one, you want to cock it!

Here is what happens when dimensions change. The Rekord trigger had to be suspended at a different point inside the end cap in order to align with the piston hook. See the empty hole at the top left? That's where the safety button is supposed to go if this were an R1, but ooops - it doesn't contact the trigger because the end cap is larger than an R1 cap. Look at the picture before this and see the other side of the cap. No safety!

I disassembled this rifle to examine the innards. I also tested it before and after disassembly. Next time, we'll look deeper into the Vissage SS-1.

Evanix Renegade double-action pistol Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (B.B. Pelletier) — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 10:30:00 +0000

by B.B. Pelletier

Part 1

Let's take a look at the velocity of the new .22-caliber Evanix Renegade pistol. As we do, pay attention to how I adjust the fill level as I go. This is a classic demonstration of why a PCP owner needs a chronograph.

Velocity with Crosman Premiers: single-action
Remember that this pistol, and all Renegades for that matter, will be more powerful in the single-action mode. That's because the hammer has more inertia in this mode. I filled the pistol by hand pump to 3,200 psi and got the following from .22-caliber Crosman Premiers:

809
800
795
780
769
759

The average was 785 f.p.s., which is a muzzle energy of 19.57 foot pounds. The pellets were loose in the chambers and the straight drop of velocity leads me to suspect the Premier is not the pellet for this pistol.

Velocity with Crosman Premiers: double-action
683
693
693
704
711
719
726
728
736
733
729
742
734
723
712
708
694
674

I learned a lot from this test. First, a 3200 psi fill is WAY over the top for double-action work! The valve is partially locked a long time, as you can see by the rising velocities. Second, after this string, the gun was down to 1,500 psi, just like the rifle was! So, it needs a much lower fill to achieve top velocity - just like many of the first-generation Condors.

I won't give you an average velocity, but I would limit my fill to 2800 psi after seeing this string. Maybe that would start the velocity at 719 f.p.s. I would then get 9 or 10 good shots that would average around 730 f.p.s., for a muzzle energy of 16.93 foot-pounds.

Velocity with Beeman Kodiaks: single-action
I filled the pistol to 3300 psi for the Beeman Kodiak pellets fired single-action. That gave the following string:

702
696
704
698
697
690
680
667

The average of that 8-shot string is 692 f.p.s., for a muzzle energy of 22.34 foot-pounds. I got perhaps one additional usable shot for the extra pressure, but only owners of Hill pumps and AirForce pumps (and Benjamin Discovery pumps) can go that high. That pressure will destroy an FX or Axsor pump.

Velocity with Beeman Kodiaks: double-action
I stopped the fill at 2800 psi for the double-action string. That gave these results:

618
624
631
635
628
646
635
628
614
609
598
581

I let the string go on longer to demonstrate how fast the velocity falls after you're off the power curve. And, 2800 psi is still too much starting pressure for double-action work with this pistol. So, again, no average is given. A 2600 psi fill might net about 7-8 good shots. If we use 620 as the average, the gun produces 17.93 foot pounds.

Velocity with Eun Jins: single-action
In the Renegade rifle report, we saw that Eun Jin pellets are the best, and they continue to be so with this pistol. I filled to 3300 psi and got this string:

612
607
606
611
616
618
607
595
584

Once again, I let the string go longer than I felt was necessary to demonstrate how quickly the power drops off after the power curve is gone. I normally would have stopped after shot No. 7 if I were chronographing the shots, or stop after one cylinder if I were in the field. That's easy to remember. Then I'd have an average of around 610 f.p.s. for a muzzle energy of 23.47 foot pounds. In a PISTOL!

Velocity with Eun Jins: double-action
This time I filled to only 2600 psi and got the following string:

551
553
555
559
557
558
554
542
530

I computed the average for this 9-shot string, and it was 551 f.p.s., which is a muzzle energy of 19.15 foot pounds. Not too shabby for a fast-shooting revolver.

What have we learned?
First, that powerful air pistols don't get many shots. Their barrels are short for pneumatics and so are their reservoirs. Both conspire to limit the number of shots. Second, we see that the Renegade valve works the same way in both the rifle and pistol. For the record, you'll shoot the gun single-action most of the time (for improved accuracy) and only resort to double-action for a fast follow-up shot.

Next, we'll look at the accuracy.

What to oil? - Part 1 A guide to sealing pneumatics and CO2 guns

noreply@blogger.com (B.B. Pelletier) — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 10:30:00 +0000

by B.B. Pelletier

I get many questions about where to oil certain airguns, so this multi-part report will address all the places. This information has been written in owners' manuals for some airguns but not for them all. Think of this as your universal tutorial.

Multi-pump pneumatics
Whether the gun pumps from the bottom, the side or has a rod coming straight out the front, they all need oil to seal their seals and internal o-rings. If I haven't shot a gun in a month, it gets oiled the first time I pick it up. If I shoot it often, it gets oiled once a month.

What oil to use?
Use some form of petroleum oil for most multi-pumps unless the manual warns against it. Crosman Pellgunoil is 20-weight motor oil with no additives except an o-ring preservative, making it the perfect oil to use.

To oil the pump head on a multi-pump rifle, open the pump handle as far as it will go. That brings the pump head to the bottom of the pump linkage slot. It will either be a silver metal part or a dark rubber part.

This is a closeup of the pump head. Put three or four drops on the pump head.

Vintage Benjamin guns
Some vintage Benjamins have a warning that says, "Do Not Oil" next to the air hole located near the muzzle of the gun. Benjamin recommends removing the pump rod and greasing the leather pump head with petroleum jelly. If you don't want to do that, you can use oil, but the small hole where the warning is located is the air hole. Don't plug it with grease or oily residue.

Oiling CO2 guns
Put a drop of oil (Pellgunoil is the best) on the tip of EACH NEW CARTRIDGE you pierce. The gas pressure will blow some of the oil through the gun, where it will get on the seals and o-rings. It is impossible to over-oil a gun, if you do it this way.

Before installing a CO2 cartridge, put a drop of Pellgunoil on it like this.

When I get a new CO2 gun and want to give it a huge shot of oil, I try to put the oil directly on the cartridge piercing mechanism. More than one drop can be put there and I usually give a new gun five drops or more. This is also helpful when oiling a vintage CO2 gun. It puts a lot of oil on the internal seals, which may have dried out.

When installing AirSource cartridges or when filling with bulk CO2, like this target pistol, drop 5 or so drops of Pellgunoil into the connection first. The gas will blow it into the gun.

Don't forget AirSource and bulk-fill guns!
I always oil AirSource and bulk-fill CO2 guns this way. These guns shoot a lot more shots between fills than guns using 12-gram cartridges, and it's good to have extra oil available for the seals. My own bulk-fill 10-meter pistol is now about 9 years old and has fired perhaps 30,000 shots, yet it still seals well because I oil it with every fill.

Here are some topics I will cover in this series in the future:

How to oil a spring-piston gun:
- Breakbarrel
- Underlever and sidelever
How to oil a BB gun
How to oil a single-stroke pneumatic
Should you oil a precharged pneumatic?
Oiling airguns for lubrication, not sealing

Have I missed anything?

HW 55 Tyrolean - Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (B.B. Pelletier) — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 10:30:00 +0000

by B.B. Pelletier

Part 1

One of our blog readers apparently doesn't know how to leave comments on the blog, so he emailed them to Pyramyd Air. If he is reading, the way comments are left is by clicking on the Post a Comment found at the bottom of the comments for each blog report. To get to the Comments section, click on the (number of) Comments at the bottom of each blog report. If there are no comments, each new blog has the Post a Comment at the bottom of the blog, itself. That brings up a window in which you write your comment and then scroll down and submit it. If possible, give yourself a name, so I can respond to you by name, and try to remember which blog entry you asked your question on. I see all the questions, but if you don't remember, you'll never find my answer. On some blog entries there are now over 200 comments, and in the comments window you have to also click on "Newest" at the top of the comments window to see your comment and my answer.

Just this once I will address his question without him commenting. Marc Wasserman asks if I'm going to ever do the additional report I mentioned in the third part of the Ruger AirHawk report - where I said I wanted to look at the trigger further. Well, Marc, you caught me! I'd forgotten about that promise until reading it today. I'll look at the AirHawk, which I still have, and see what can be done.

Please don't use this method as a means of bypassing the word verification that is required for every blog comment. Yes, it's clumsy and buggy - but that's Google, not Pyramyd Air. This blog is so popular that if we were to take that off we would be flooded by spams that I would have to delete.

Pyramyd Air Garage Sale
Many of you are interested in the Garage Sale Pyramyd Air held last weekend. Owner Joshua Ungier took some pictures and asked me to share them with you.

Lots of great deals at the garage sale.

On Saturday, the crowd was large at times.

If you couldn't make this sale, don't forget Pyramyd Air will be at the Roanoke Airgun Expo on Friday and Saturday, October 24 & 25.

Today, I'll look at the velocity of Wayne's HW 55T. From examining and shooting the gun, I'm getting lots of indications that is was recently tuned, and perhaps hasn't had time to break in, yet. The barrel latch is too stiff, like it was recently adjusted. And, the gun fires with just a "thunk." A factory 55 would vibrate just a little, so I anticipate finding either black tar on the mainspring or a super-tight spring guide. Finally, I've spotted a lot of moly paste at the pivot point, but the factory uses only clear petroleum grease. So, that was added later. It all adds up to a recent tune.

You may remember that I reviewed the HW 55 SF I found at Little Rock for you. I thought I'd compare the velocity of that rifle against this one, just as a baseline of expectations. Here are the 4 reports on that gun.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

Firing behavior
I must say that I'm not pleased with the way this rifle performs right now. The barrel-locking latch is too stiff, as I noted, and there's a dragging of the cocking shoe over the mainspring that, while normal on some tuned springers, is distracting nevertheless. I'll see what can be done, if anything, when I go inside the rifle to examine the powerplant. I also don't like the trigger setup. This is a special Rekord, and it's capable of a very light release, yet this one is set up like an R1. Of all the Rekord triggers, the HW 55 trigger is special and deserves to be adjusted properly. I plan to make some adjustments, which I'll describe for you in detail.

Velocity with Meisterkugeln
My HW 55 SF averaged 543 f.p.s. with RWS Meisterkugeln wadcutter target pellets. The spread was just 18 f.p.s., which is pretty good for a springer. This Tyrolean averages 516 f.p.s. with the same pellet and the spread is 27 f.p.s. That's not too large, but it's a clue the rifle is still breaking in, as is the slower velocity. The barrel latch may have something to do with this because the breech seal appears to be mashed pretty flat.

Velocity with RWS Hobbys
My 55 averaged 631 f.p.s. with RWS Hobbys with a spread of 38 f.p.s. That's a little high, but at 10 meters you would never notice it. The Tyrolean averages 598 f.p.s. with the same pellet and exhibits a 40 f.p.s. spread. Not much difference except a little slower.

Velocity with Chinese blue-label target pellets
Back when I competed in 10-meter pistol, I found a Chinese target pellet that out-performed RWS R-10s and Beeman H&N Match pellets. They weigh a little less than H&N match pistol pellets, but since I don't have enough of those for testing, I used this 7.6-grain substitute. They're no longer available, so when my small stash is gone, I'll have to find a new pellet. I got an average velocity of 598 f.p.s., with a spread of 21 f.p.s., the tightest of the test. The H&Ns gave an average of 622 with an extreme spread of 19 f.p.s. in my SF.

So, what did I learn?
A pre-tuneup test like this is a very helpful diagnostic for an airgunsmith. I now have a list of things to look for and several adjustments to be made. I'll check to see if too much vibration-deadening grease has been applied to the mainspring. And, I'll check the breech seal carefully. I'll also adjust the trigger until it performs like I know a target Rekord can. And, I may adjust the barrel latch if it still seems too stiff when I get to it.

The next thing we'll do is dive inside the rifle.

Pro-Guide spring retainer system for RWS Diana rifles Part 5The RWS Diana 34 Panther

noreply@blogger.com (B.B. Pelletier) — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 10:30:00 +0000

by B.B. Pelletier

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

Today, I'll test the Air Venturi Pro-Guide spring retainer in an RWS Diana 34 Panther - the same rifle that was used to test the new Leapers drooper base. This rifle has been broken in and used a lot in the time I've had it, so the powerplant should be ready to accept the new Pro-Guide system.

Installation
Installing the Pro Guide in the breakbarrel 34 was easier than installation in the RWS Diana 48 because there is no sidelever mechanism to remove. In fact, now that I'm familiar with how the T05 trigger comes apart, I find this action faster to strip than almost any other breakbarrel - even the easy Weihrauchs that have the screw-in end cap. I did not use any washers in this rifle - just the basic Pro Guide system as it comes.

Assembly is equally easy, though I must comment that the T05 trigger doesn't want to cock after assembly. I had to really tug on the barrel to cock the rifle the first several times after putting it back together. Then, it settled in and became docile once more.

Though the spring tube of the 34 is a smaller diameter than the tube on the 48, the same Pro-Guide fits both rifles. It fits to the trigger instead of the inside diameter of the spring tube.

Firing behavior
The transformation was incredible! Not that the 34 vibrated before the Pro-Guide, but after it was installed, the gun just went "Thunk!" To a greater extent than the 48 we tested, this rifle accepted the Pro-Guide willingly and thankfully - which is to say the firing behavior rivals the best tune job you can imagine. Only the Gamo Whisper with the gas spring conversion is as dead-calm as this rifle with the Pro-Guide.

Velocity with Kodiaks
Before the Pro-Guide installation, this rifle averaged 820 f.p.s. with Beeman Kodiaks (they were H&N Baracudas, but the same pellet). With the Pro-Guide, the average was 825 f.p.s., so a slight increase. That's 16.02 foot-pounds. The spread was 21 f.p.s., from 816 to 837.

Velocity with Premier Lites
Crosman Premier 7.9-grain pellets averaged 919 f.p.s. with the factory spring and 936 f.p.s. with the Pro-Guide. There was one anomalous shot that went 952 f.p.s.; otherwise the average would have been lower in the 930s. The spread was 926 to 952, and the average energy was 15.37 foot-pounds.

Velocity with Hobbys
The average with RWS Hobby pellets was 1021 f.p.s. before and after the Pro-Guide was installed. The spread was from 1008 to 1031 f.p.s., and the muzzle energy was 16.21 foot-pounds.

My assessment
If you own an RWS Diana 34, get the Pro-Guide for your rifle the next time you need a tuneup. Or just get it now - I don't think you'll regret it. The firing behavior becomes so smooth and positive that it's a different rifle. This is an option that is even worth installing on a brand new rifle if you want smooth operation.

Evanix Renegade double-action pistol Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (B.B. Pelletier) — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 10:30:00 +0000

by B.B. Pelletier

Renegade pistol is nicely styled and beautifully finished.

Hot on the heels of the Renegade rifle test, I'm now testing the Renegade pistol. In the photo, the pistol may appear normal size, but looks are deceiving. This is a very large air pistol. That said, it isn't any larger than the Falcon, Daystate or Air Arms PCP pistols that have sold over the past 15 years. To work at all efficiently, a pneumatic pistol needs some size for barrel length (to achieve acceleration of the pellet) and for reservoir capacity.

Because there may be some crossover interest in other Renegade guns, I'm giving you the links to all five reports for the rifle.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

The Renegade system is new to Evanix airguns, which until now have been the latest versions of the AR6 family of Korean pneumatic rifles and its associated relatives. The Renegade is a departure because, for the first time, the double-action trigger-pull is feasible to use. That means you get up to 6 quick shots by just pulling the trigger. How fast they happen is up to you.

Precharged air pistols have not been plentiful up until now, and the few that existed were nearly always very expensive - as in $700 and more. There has been an AR6 air pistol for at least the past 8 years, but for a long time it was based on the rifle and was little more than a cut-down carbine. On the plus side, it developed 50 foot-pounds. On the minus, it was as large as a small carbine. The current AR6 pistol looks very similar to the Renegade, with the difference being it is a little more powerful but doesn't have the double-action facility.

The Renegade pistol is sized as a real pistol, weighing a trifle over 3 lbs. without sights. The grip is sized for the average hand, though shooters having larger hands should find it handy because there is an abundance of gripping surface. Your fingers have places to go if they wrap around farther than average.

Appearance
You cannot fault this pistol for looks! The wood stock is finely crafted of light walnut with panels of fine checkering on either side of the grip. There are scalloped finger grooves on the front of the grip. The triggerguard is formed from the wood in a single piece, adding style to an attractive piece. All metal parts are polished and deeply blued in the equal of a good European finish. This is an airgun of which to be proud.

Function
As with the rifle, the trigger doesn't work properly until the rifle is pressurized. Since that is the state in which you should always maintain it, you won't notice anything except when the pistol is brand new or has just been received from a common carrier.

If you want to fill from a hand pump when the gun is empty, the hammer must be cocked first. Always put the safety on when you do this; and, for extra safety, remove the cylinder. Without the cylinder, the pistol cannot shoot anything but air.

The air intake port is at the front of the pistol under the free-floated barrel. It has a captive cover that simply has to be rotated open when you want to insert the fill probe.

Sights
There are no sights on the pistol, so either a scope or dot sight must be added. This is one time you will want to use a real pistol scope for the added eye relief. I don't have one, so I plan to use the Leapers UTG Tactedge 4x40 scope, whose long-eye relief will at least let me hold the gun 5" from my eye. The pistol has a conventional 11mm dovetail on top of the aluminum receiver, and of course recoil is not a problem.

Performance
No shooting in this report, but let's all get ready for it. This is an air pistol, so it's not going to get a large number of powerful shots. Because of the small reservoir and short 10" barrel (short compared to a rifle, that is), it will either get a few powerful shots or many low-powered ones. Knowing where this one came from, I'm pretty sure it will get fewer more powerful shots. The specs say 841 f.p.s. in .22 caliber with a 14-grain pellet. We'll compare our stats with theirs, plus I think we'll see a difference between single-action and double-action power. I'll document that, as well.

This pistol is meant for hunting, pure and simple. It's not for target shooting, and no formal air pistol sport will tolerate power like this Renegade delivers, but it's perfect for hunters. So, once again, the goal will be long-range accuracy.

This should be interesting!